Amazon should be the training grounds for union organizing. All unions should send apprentices and shop stewards to do a week on the streets to help unionize Amazon. This could be the training grounds of what works and what doesn’t. The experience the young union people will help build our unions larger and better, and we will be training new leaders.
The unions all need to come together as one to win this fight to put a union in one of the largest and richest companies in the world. There are playbooks out there, such as the one about Debs and the Pullman Railroad Strike. The Ford Motor Company employees’ sit-in strike.
The big people and corporations have been brought down before. We must all band together like we did in the 1950s with the AFL/CIO, the two largest unions combined as one with one leader.
A thorough investigation into the failure of the union attempt at Amazon in Alabama needs to be done before we continue. We can’t just blame the workers and community. We need to understand the why’s, hows and whats. Why did they vote against their own best interests? What did the union do wrong that it weren’t able to convince the people to vote yes? How can we change our approach to convince people this is for them, their families and their retirements.
We’re in a pandemic and we don’t know how long we will be stuck in this mode, and while a lot of workers lost their jobs or were downsized, corporations thrived. The economy is set to experience a 7 to 8 percent growth—how is that possible? Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, grew by $75 milion in 2020 and his most recent net worth was listed as $193 billion--he's the second wealthest person in the world. It was reported that at least 4,000 of his warehouse workers are on foodstamps. There are 56 new billionaires created during the pandemic.
Drug companies raised prices, along with companies like Coca-cola, Procter&Gamble and Kimberly Clarke to name just a few.
If we don’t respond to the Amazon failure and continue to fight with all we have unions will just fade away. Understand, Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon, not because of the threat of unions but because of it. He can better fight against the efforts in his new position as executive chairman of Amazon. This fight will be the tipping point for union versus nonunion. It is a must win for our workers who need a living wage, healthcare, pensions, and a safe place to work.
Unions’ long game is to get all union contracts to expire on the same day nationwide. The United Auto Workers combines contracts ends on April 28, 2028. This could then result in a mass national strike starting on May Day beeginning that year. This could then put enormous pressure on employers, but also on lawmakers. It’s the muscle and sweat of the workers that keeps this country great, not the individual company or corporations. This May Day strike would be the time to change the workers’ world for the better by negotiating for a 32-hour week with the same pay, and the U.S. adopts a healthcare for all with no out of pocket costs. This would also help the employers as they would no longer have to provide healthcare. By striking, the UAW won same pay for new workers, all UAW contracts will end on the same date, a 25-percent pay increase, a cost of living adjustments, a guaranteed right to strike over potential plant closures, and also the right to vote to unionize through the card che
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